Hello. As Kid 1 is getting launched out the door and on his way to college, Kid 2 is eagerly awaiting her turn in the catapult seat, and even though she is just finishing her sophomore year wants to start looking at some colleges this summer. Kid 1 was a recruited football player, so our experience with him will assumedly be of little value this time around. I am looking for a little help in giving Kid 2 some suggested colleges to look at, and would appreciate any advice.
Basic info:
Right now, an unweighted 4.0 at an all girls college prep school.
Obviously no SAT/ACT results, but has tested in the top 2-3% on standardized tests her whole life.
Really strong math/science student, but despite her father’s pleading, has no current interest in engineering or “hard” sciences.
Very involved in theater, both at the high school and in various community theaters.
Band kid, typical extra curriculars of a young UMC girl who wants to go to a “good school”
Current student goals are a small-ish college with a strong theater/social work/public policy program. Wants to be out of state (we are in Ohio). Would prefer a city but I don’t think that is a deal breaker. Would like a school with generous aid because she plans on taking a shot at theater for a couple years after graduation, and consequently wants no debt. We will help with school costs but can’t swing full pay at a lot of schools without loans.
Current Mom goals - someplace she will be happy. Dad goals - nunnery, all girls school or as a last resort a school with a good blend of fine arts and STEM so she can actually get a job if she doesn’t end up trodding the boards.
She is getting quite a lot of junk mail from U Chicago, so is interested in looking there. She also likes Notre Dame, although it doesn’t seem to fit any of the things she says she is looking for in a school other than it is not close to home. Personally, I think she would be very happy at some of the NESCACs her brother looked at, particularly Williams.
Macalester? Generous with merit and need aid, strong commitment to social issues w/o being over the top, in a big city but in a safe part. There is theater and art, dk how to evaluate that piece of it. Relatively small, seems like a happy, friendly place. Sorry, there will be boys!
Also in MN: Carleton. More of a STEM school than Macalester. Feels like U of C intellectually, but is smaller and not on the south side of Chicago. Not in a big city, but she could get to one. DK how generous with aid.
Brandeis? Small, near a city but not in one, big commitment to social justice, I had the impression there were lots of arts.
Haverford? Small and in a city and I don’t know much more than that.
One of the all women schools? How does your D feel about that? It would not have been for me, but I imagine those schools would have good aid and good social sciences.
Have you run the Net Price Calculators at any of the college/university websites yet? If so, does it appear that you would be full pay? If you can’t afford the full pay, how much merit would she need in order to make it affordable.
Does she have any interest in theater tech/design? That is more likely to get (and keep) her employed.
If you do pop up to Chicago to see what U Chicago has on offer, stroll down to the loop and tour Columbia College and DePaul as well. Columbia has terrific theater programs and very bad financial aid. DePaul has good theater as well, and somewhat better aid.
Carleton has one merit aid award – $2K for three categories of merit scholars. Other than that, it’s all financial aid. Carleton is generous, but I’m unclear whether you’d like merit aid or actually qualify for financial aid. Great school.
I like the Brandeis suggestion. I personally don’t know a lot about the school, but I do know a current freshman who sounds a lot like your dd who is over the moon there.
Thanks for the thoughts. I am not sure if she wants an all girls college. She is enjoying the single sex experience in high school, but also spends a lot of time at her brother’s all boy school for extra curriculars (theater and Marching band). We did run net price calculators for many of the Ivys and some NESCACS (Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin) with her brother, and generally speaking we could cover the EFC at most of those with no loans. My guess is if she doesn’t head to a school with that level of need based aid, she will need some blend of merit aid and decent need based aid to get out “clean”. She hasn’t shown much interest in the technical side of theater yet. She is a proud diva, and likes the bright lights.
My free advice…if she wants to do theater…make sure she has some good experience and training in the technical side of theater…she will likely get a job with ths training. Most theater programs require even the acting majors to have a level of involvement with the behind the scenes theater “stuff”, so she should be prepared for that anyway.
You and she should be aware that not all STEM graduates have good major-related job prospects. Indeed, the most popular STEM major, biology, tends to have poor major-related job prospects, probably due to the flood of new graduates every year. Math or statistics majors probably have lighter workloads (allowing more time for performing arts courses and activities) than most other STEM majors, and tend to have better major-related job prospects (e.g. finance and actuarial, or computers, if one takes appropriate electives).
So don’t push a “STEM major” on her, although if she actually likes math, let her know of the possibility of adding a major in something like math or statistics to make it easier to get a reasonable day job if performing arts does not produce that.
UChicago has great public policy programs, but is probably not quite a fit for an aspiring professional actress.
Macalester is a great idea. Minneapolis is a terrific city with great theater.
Carnegie Mellon has great theater programs and strong STEM. Pittsburgh is a lovely city.
Barnard in NYC is an all women’s college but classes and extracurriculars are thoroughly integrated with Columbia - they have a decent track record of students working in theater during/after college.
Thanks. CMU jumped out at us initially, and in some ways it would be a perfect fit. Away from home, but not too far, good school with strength in both performing arts and STEM. Unfortunately, I have heard anecdotally that they do not offer much in the way of financial aid. Carelton and MacCallister are intriguing options we hadn’t considered. My wife grew up in South Dakota and there is still a lot of family in the “Cities” and surrounding area.
I appreciate the point about STEM. First, we are not interested in “pushing” her into any area. It’s her life, and she is the one who will need to find fulfillment in it. Second, she hates Bio (likely because her brother loves it). If she goes the STEM route, it is probably as an engineer. She is a big math kid and seems to really enjoy physics. Currently, she says she wants a career that is more people focused. But, like with all kids her age, she doesn’t yet see that there are myriad options within any field. That is why I would ideally like her to pick a school with strength in both her current passions. She may just find a way to blend them at the end of the day.
You are preaching to the choir on learning the technical aspects of theater. One of the community theaters in which she participates is run in part by the guy who builds the sets at Playhouse Square. He has been preaching the merits of being involved with sound, or lighting and the like to her for a couple years. So far, she has proven hard headed. A trait I am convinced she picked up from her mother.
A lot of the “survival” jobs in NYC for aspiring actors are writing based- social media, copywriter, newsletters for professional associations and corporations, churning out press releases and annual reports, etc. (of course there are also the waiters and the dog-walkers). So any decent writing program is a great backup for a theater major. The ability to support yourself with 15-20 hours a week of freelance editing, copy -writing and ghostwriting will really help her. And technical writing pays the most- pharma, software, engineered products, industrial companies. So ANY science courses and at least one statistics course- could really pay off.
The best freelance writer I ever hired was able to look at a 100 page research report or study and tease out a four page “executive summary” with an additional set of bullet points presenting the key technical findings. He was a whiz with statistics and analysis in addition to being a solid wordsmith.
He was an opera singer. I should reach out to him and find out if he ever fully “launched” as a performer!
http://www.eed.egr.unlv.edu/index.html would combine both theater and engineering - but she’d need to have some interest in tech/design in addition to performing.
CMU has a great theater program, but very selective. If she’s serious about theater or musical theater, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Auditions and a different list of schools.
I was going to say the same thing as mathmom. You can’t really do both arts and the hard sciences at CMU. The CMU acting program is a conservatory that is auditioned and VERY selective (especially for girls). That is something your D will have to decide: Does she want a conservatory style acting/theatre program where the vast majority of courses are in theatre, It’s essentially professional training for theatre and usually is a BFA degree. I think the general rule of thumb for those type of programs is that about 70% of classes are in theatre vs. 30% in other “general education” classes. Or does she want more of a liberal arts approach to theatre where she could major/minor or just participate in theatre and also major/minor in something else in the social sciences or whatever? Often these programs are not auditioned based and typically offer the BA degree. Although there is variation in BA, BFA degrees (and I believe some programs like Skidmore even offer a B.S. in theatre). If she is serious about the theatre thing, I would suggest heading over to the Theatre Majors and/or Musical Theatre Majors forums here and educating yourself. There are an awful lot of really knowledgeable people on those boards.
One thing that may help your D to decide what type of program is to do one of the summer programs (Boston University, CMU, Northwestern, U of the Arts) - they are typically run as conservatory style programs and they will let her know if that is something that she is looking for. My D did Cherubs program at Northwestern before her senior year of HS and while she loved it, it solidified for her that she wanted more of a liberal arts approach to her theatre education.
Also, be aware that typically merit aid does not stack on top of financial (I…e. need-based) aid. Merit aid will just reduce the amount of need based aid. So you will likely have to pay your EFC no matter what unless you get a really big merit award somewhere that is greater than the need-based aid would have been.
Thanks @momofzag. The distinction between conservatory/liberal arts theater programs is something none of us was really focused on. My guess is she would choose a more liberal arts focused course of study rather than a full immersion BFA, but there is a long road ahead of her yet. Either way, it gives her something to think about when looking at schools for the first cut as it were.
Did she take the PSATs? Just wondering since you said she is getting junk mail from colleges - usually they get your address from the College Board. It might provide another data point.
This isn’t in a city, but maybe as a match or safety…
Lawrence University. One of the “divas” from my neighborhood is currently attending. Big sis also attended.
If your D is aiming at colleges like Brown and Wes, I’d suggest she beef up her theatre resume considerably. One way of doing this is to enter things like the Shakespeare Contest. http://www.esuus.org/esu/programs/shakespeare_competition/about/
Altenatively, if you can afford it or qualify for fin aid, try for summer theatre camps at places like Interlochen or Stage Door. (I’m sure there’s more and better advice posted by others.)
Don’t make the mistake so many kids do. They choose their reach, match, and safety schools for the same things. A conservative estimate would be that 80% of the theatre kids I know who have good stats and don’t want a BFA apply to Yale, Brown, Wesleyan, and Vassar.( Now that Harvard has a theatre program, I suspect it will also appear on the list.) UChicago is also a common choice, but more for the kids who want to do Improv type things.
Pick some colleges that have good theatre but aren’t inundated with applications from theatre types. I’m NOT saying your D won’t get in; she might. IME, however, a lot of the theatre kid slots are used up the ED round. If you are applyin in the regular round, it can be tough. So, make sure to pick a few colleges where applicants whose principal EC is acting aren’t super common. Alternatively, apply to some colleges at which her test scores and GPA will put her in the top 25%.
